


Biding Time

by mogwai_do



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, POV First Person, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:10:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mogwai_do/pseuds/mogwai_do
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You went to see Darius again today.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Biding Time

You went to see Darius again today. Do your Watcher friends know about that? Or have they authorised your little visits? I suspect they don't know; after all, why watch an Immortal who hasn't taken a head in over a millennium? I went to see him too, you know, not long after I saw you visit him the first time. He was quite surprised to see me, I wonder why. Wouldn't tell me anything about you, of course, I didn't expect him to. I messed up his precious chess set for old times' sake. What was it about Rome that produced such compulsive tidiers? It didn't piss him off half as much as it used to though, he's getting better at this priest thing, it's a shame really to see such talent go to waste like that. I can't help but wonder why you visit him still, when he no longer has any room for conflict in his life. Do you see him as some kind of example to guide yourself by? I don't see it somehow, you were always too self-reliant. Maybe you just want the company of your own kind without fear for your head, a chance to talk to someone who understands the context. It seems more likely. Are you lonely in your self-imposed isolation, brother? I could fix that.

You play chess together now, the way you used to, though these pieces don't bleed nearly so much. I wonder if the Senate ever realised it was merely a playing field for the two of you. You pretended weakness to the other politicians and pissed off the great General Darius as a hobby. He knew it was you fucking over his chances of political power, but he could never prove it. He couldn't kill you either, you were too good, always there was some more immediate threat or inconvenient happenstance. Do you ever talk about those days I wonder, and if you do, what do you say? I would imagine that Darius the priest recognises what an arrogant, over-confident child he was, but does he know that your sole motivation in thwarting his goals was pure entertainment? Does he know how amusing you found it to puncture his self-image and cripple his pride? Does he realise that if you had considered him half the threat he believed himself to be, he would have died nearly 2,000 years ago? I doubt it. He never knew you as I know you. Maybe you've told this 'new and improved' Darius your secret shame, but I doubt that too. You might have told him some of the things you've done, but I bet you've never told him that your shame is not the actions, but the lack of shame you felt for them. But I know, I've always known. Just like I know that for all the apparent change, underneath you're still the same ruthless bastard we came to love. You used to tell me as we sat in your gardens in Greece - centuries before Darius came along with the might of Rome - that nothing was ever truly destroyed, it only changed. Changed beyond all recognition perhaps, but never gone.

I see you now, Adam Pierson, I see the way you bow to others, the way you hide yourself away. You're virtually unrecognisable as the man who rode by my side as we ruled the earth. So innocent you are, it can't last, innocence never does and you know it. If I come to you now, you'll run far and fast and it'll take another few millennia to find you again. I'm not a patient man, but I can manage a few weeks, a few months, a few years to avoid more. I can wait until you edge back into the open again as you always do when you're bored. You'll make a few friends, get involved with their lives, worm your way into their hearts until they think you've always been there. The innocence will fade in favour of a new persona, the sort that can stand up to the rigours of life; the shell of innocence you keep so close will begin to crack, the better to feel the life you lead. I can wait until then, I can wait until you allow the smallest gap in your defences, then I'll be there to drive in the wedge and split the façade wide open to reveal your core to those you have grown so close to. Death will see the light again and on such fertile ground as shattered trust, he will grow strong. You are my brother in every sense but the literal; what we share is unique in all the world and time... And we will have it again, I promise you.

You stop outside the bookstore, one of your many retreats. You look like an absent-minded student as you gaze unseeingly across at Notre Dame, but I can almost feel you stretching your senses from here. Was I careless? Do you know I'm here watching you? Do you suspect what I plan? You're relaxing now, the virtually imperceptible tension easing from your frame. I'm no threat to you and you know it and so I slip beneath your radar. I may ruin this life you have made, but not yet. You halt again, one hand on the door and my breath freezes in my chest. You are absolutely still, your head bowed and from here I cannot see if your eyes are open or closed, but you are not looking around and that worries me more. Your focus is inward and I know enough to be wary. I am so still that I can feel my own Quickening snap restlessly within me, seeking its twin. As abruptly as that you move again, as if that moment of stillness had never been. Did you truly sense me here or was my care enough? I don't know and in all likelihood I never will, you have always kept your own counsel. Still, there is no sense in pushing my luck just yet and this time when you move on I do not follow.

 

FIN


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